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Thank you. Please be seated.
And as we do so, let us read from Genesis and Chapter 6. We will read the whole chapter. Genesis and Chapter 6. If you are there, we commence
reading. When man began to multiply on
the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, the sons of
God saw that the sons of man were attractive, and they took
as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, My spirit
shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh, his days shall
be one hundred and twenty years. The Nephilim were on the earth
in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in
to the daughters of man, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who
were of old, the men of renown. The Lord saw that the wickedness
of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord
was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved
him to his heart. So the Lord said, I will blot
out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and
animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am
sorry that I have made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes
of the Lord. These are the generations of
Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless
in his generation. Noah walked with God. And Noah had three sons, Shem,
Ham, and Japheth. Now the earth was corrupt in
God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God
saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had
corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, I have
determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled
with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with
the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher
wood, make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with
peach. This is how you are to make it. The length of the ark, 300 cubits. Its breadth, 50 cubits. And its height, 30 cubits. Make
a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above, and set
the door of the ark in its side. Make it with lower, second, and
third decks. For behold, I will bring a flood
of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath
of life under heaven. everything that is on the earth
shall die, and my text for today. But I will establish my covenant
with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons,
your wives, and your sons' wives with you. And of every living
thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into
the ark, to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female,
of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according
to their kinds, and of every creeping thing on the ground
according to its kind. of every sort shall come in to
you to keep them alive. Also, take with you every sort
of food that is eaten, and store it up. It shall serve as food
for you and for them. Noah did this. He did all that
God commanded him. Well, brethren, we come to yet
another installment in a series of messages on the subject of
faithfulness. We began at the beginning of
this year, strictly speaking, dealing with this subject. And
although we ought to have begun in Genesis because of events
that occurred, the death of one of our members, We began later
on in the Gospel of Matthew looking at some, the rewards of faithfulness
because we were dealing with a saint that had departed from
this life. However, after that we have gone
back to Genesis and began appropriately. And two things that we have noticed
thus far, first of all, is that in fact, faithfulness is of the
very essence of our relationship with God. And consequently, when
God made our first parents, the first thing He did was to enter
into a covenant relationship with them. And like all covenants,
they had the blessings of keeping the covenant, and there was also
the penalty of a failure to keep that covenant. And God, as it
were, went away from them, and they were supposed to keep that
agreement. Well, we went on to see later
on that they didn't keep the agreement. Eve visited a place
within the center of the Garden of Eden. The serpent was used
of Satan to tempt her. She began to look at this fruit,
forgot that she is in a covenant relationship with God, as of
utmost importance. And consequently, she ate of
the fruit, and we have paid for it since. What we go on to do
now is to look at God himself as an example of faithfulness. We've just seen how Eve, and
of course Adam with her, became unfaithful to God. And when we're
studying that, in many ways, we saw ourselves reflected in
these two individuals. Because often, when we are alone,
we are unfaithful to God. And when we are away from one
another, we are unfaithful to one another. But what we notice
about God, which we will look at in a few minutes, is that
God remains faithful. We have been meditating a little
earlier on the fact that God does not change. When he has
made his promises, he sticks to them. It doesn't matter what
is going to come. He remains faithful. In fact, as the Apostle Paul
goes on to say later on, when we become unfaithful to him,
he still remains faithful because he can never become unfaithful
to himself. And this is what I want us to
notice together here, and I trust that It is because of this reality
that God is faithful and remains faithful that you and I have
come to trust Him for our salvation. We have, as it were, placed into
His hands our eternal welfare, and we don't even need to look
there. We are busy, as it were, serving Him, knowing that when
we have breathed our last, He will keep to His covenant and
bring us into His heaven because we have repented of our sins
and we have trusted in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as our
only hope of salvation. Very well then, let's go back
to verse 18 of our Bible reading. We are told there God spoke these
words to Noah, that I will establish my covenant with you, and you
shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your
sons' wives with you. The principle that we are learning
out of this is that in the midst of a fallen and sinful world,
God always has a people whom He deliberately rescues primarily
because they find favor with Him. And this is the only way
in which we can explain Noah himself. We notice very quickly
back in our passage, a little earlier on, that Noah is described
this way in verse 9. Maybe I'll include verse 8 because
it is a statement that is clearly setting the tone. But Noah found
favor in the eyes of the Lord. These are the generations of
Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless
in his generation. Noah walked with God. And then we notice in verse 11
that the earth was corrupt in God's sight, the earth was filled
with violence. What is it that made Noah stand
out compared to the environment that he was in? Is it simply
because he was born different from everybody else? Is it because
he was brought up very well by his parents? Is this something
that was just natural to him? Well, when you read the Bible,
it is very clear that the first act The distinguished Noah from
everybody else lies in those words, Noah found favour in the
eyes of God. Verse 8 precedes verse 9. In other words, God did something
for Noah. And I'll come to a verse or two
in a moment to show what that is. And that which God did for
Noah is what produced the kind of life that was now in Noah,
that distinguished him from everybody else. And perhaps the best passage
to help us appreciate that is Romans 11, verse 3 to verse 6.
Romans 11. Now, in that passage, we have Paul looking at the whole question,
why have most Israelites rejected the Gospel? And I want you to
notice his answer. His answer there is that those
whom God has chosen have not rejected the gospel. And in the
midst of the almost total rejection of the gospel, God, and this
is the point, by His grace, has kept a few of the people for
Himself. He's made them walk against the
wind that is blowing in their community. He has made them different
from everybody else. And it has been an act of grace
on his part. Verse 3. Maybe, let me begin
from verse 1, just to provide the context. I ask then, has
God rejected his people? By no means. For I myself am
an Israelite, A descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe
of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people,
listen to this, whom he foreknew. And as we've already said, this
is not simply God knowing that these people will exist, but
God loving them, having special attention for them, favoring
them other than others Because if you simply say for knowing,
well God in that sense knows everybody He goes on to say,
do you not know what the scriptures say of Elijah, how he appeals
to God against Israel, and then where our reading was supposed
to commence? Lord, they have killed your prophets,
they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left and they
seek my face. That's what Elijah thought, that
he was the only survivor. But listen to this, But what
is God's reply to him? I have kept for myself. Who is the active agent? God
himself. I have kept for myself 7,000
men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Elijah, you are not
the only one. There are 7,000 others They may not be as visible as
you'd like them to be, but they are there faithful to me. They've refused to bow their
knees to bow. What makes the difference, verse
5 and verse 6? So too, at the present time,
there is a remnant, listen, chosen by grace. That's what makes the
difference. And he goes on to say, but if
it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of words. So it's
not because of who they are that God has chosen them. It is because
of grace that they are what they are. And then he says, otherwise
grace would no longer be grace. Alright, so clearly here, it
is the grace of God upon Noah, the favor of God upon Noah, that
then produced somebody who was blameless, who was righteous,
who was walking with God. What are we learning from there?
It is this, that if you want to know whether the favor of
God is upon you, whether the grace of God is upon you. It's not by peeping into the
books of heaven to see whether your name is on the book of life
there. You will never have the opportunity
to peep there until you are already in eternity and on the judgment
day. How do you know that the grace
of God and the favor of God is upon you. It is this, that you
will be spiritually and morally different from everybody else
around you. that while the wind in your community,
in your society, in your home, in your workplace, wherever it
might be, while the wind is blowing in the direction of immorality,
corruption, evil, and wickedness, and everybody's going there,
you'll be heading in the opposite direction. because the grace of God has
visited you. So when a person is saying, well,
you know, it was very difficult, you know, everybody in my office,
that's the way they live, you know, how could you be any different? Well, the reason is because God
has not saved you. He's not visited you by his grace. So you are like them, and you
will go to exactly the same place as them, you will go to hell.
Your Christianity is only skin deep. It's not real. When it is real, God makes you
different. And if you are in college, or
university, or school, your friends will ask you the question, but
you, why are you different? And your answer will not be,
well, you know, us Tumbukas. That's the way we are. No. It will not be because my parents
brought me up very well. It will be that God visited me
by His grace. His favor came upon me and consequently
my heart was changed. I once loved sin, I now hate
it. I once wanted nothing to do with
godliness, that is now my food and my drink. I want to be like
God. Well, let's hurry on because
Part of God's rescue plan, to get you out of the morally degenerate
times in which you live, is to enter into a covenant relationship
with you. That's part of His plan, His
blueprint. And that's exactly what we notice
here with respect to Noah, back to Genesis and Chapter 6. We
read there in verse 18, God saying, But I will establish my covenant
with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons,
your wife, and your sons' wives. Now this is the first time in
the whole Bible that we come across the Hebrew word for covenant. And remember, we have already
talked about something to that effect earlier on. So, the idea
itself has already been there. But this is the first time in
the Bible when the actual Hebrew word is used that we translate
as covenant. And what I want you to notice
again is that all the requirements are there. And at this stage,
I'm primarily interested in The first requirement for a covenant,
and you remember, well, the first requirement for faithfulness,
and we say that it suggests two people, okay, or two groups,
but at least two parties. And in this particular case,
we've got God on the one hand, and Noah on the other. And God
is specifically coming to Noah and saying, Noah, I have begun
this rescue operation. I'm about to destroy everybody,
in fact, everything that breathes. But I want to spare you. And for me to spare you, I'm
about to make promises to you. I'm about to give you a responsibility,
but I'm also about to make a promise to you. Now, because we read the Bible
so much, we tend to take things for granted. Fine! He gave Noah the work that he
had to do, to build an ark. And we have been singing, Noah
built an ark, since our Sunday school days. He also promised
him that once he had built the ark, he was going to cause two
of each of the animals to make their way into the ark, which
also happened. But the point I want to mention
here is the amazing nature of this. Because, you know, God is God. He can recreate the world at
the click of a finger. For Him to come down and begin
to have such intimate dealings with us surely should surprise us. I mean, that's what children's
fairy tale stories are all about. They're often about this little
useless girl whom everybody is mistreating. She now looks terrible
because of a terrible auntie or whoever, guardian who's favoring
all the other children. And then this prince charming,
this knight in shining armor arrives with a shoe and says,
whoever fits into this shoe is mine. Okay. Those who went through nursery
school, you're all smiling. The others are looking at me
like, What is this all about? And all the other ladies try
to fit in, almost cutting their feet with scissors. They are
failing to fit in. Finally, the most despised little
useless girl fits in, and her fortunes are completely changed. Who is it? All right, the children have
answered. They've seen Cinderella. All
right, thank you very much. Okay, you can go and Google and
find out what it is all about. It's amazing. Even children are able
to understand that. But you see, for us, it's God
himself, the creator of the universe. coming down in this way, entering
into covenant relationship with us, committing himself to be
faithful to us for all time and for all eternity, surely it ought
to constantly amaze us that he should be so good to us. I mean,
if you were Noah, and you were given this promise, it makes
sense why Noah became a preacher of righteousness Why he now went
to everybody else and began to preach to them that they too
might come into this ark because the living God, the creator of
the heavens and the earth has come and made a promise. It's
a living promise. It's true. And that's why I'm
spending all my time putting up this ark. Because I believe
him. He's been good to me. and therefore
come and be rescued as well. Now it's at that point that the
importance of faith and faithfulness come in. Remember what we said,
covenant relationships demand faith and they demand for faithfulness. Because there will always be
this period of absence, when temptation comes in to abandon
the covenant. Let us follow Noah for a moment. He's built his ark, and he's
built it in the midst of skepticism. People are laughing at him. saying
to him, Mwana, where on earth is this thing called rain going
to come from? For you to be building this big,
big ship on top of land, where is this thing going to come from? He continues. Finally, he finishes
building the ark. The animals begin to come in,
and the birds, and the creeping creatures, two by two. He goes in. The door is shut. The rains begin to pour. I want to suggest to you that
at that point, what mattered the most was not Noah's faithfulness. It was God's faithfulness. As the rains began to pour, and
pour, and pour, for 40 days and 40 nights, and as the land began
to disappear, because it was now all becoming ocean, As the
last individuals were managing to get onto the highest mountains
and finally also being drowned, until their voices could no longer
be heard, Noah would have been asking himself
the question, will these rains ever end? The answer lay in one
area, if God is faithful. Because he's the one who made
the promise. Well, a time came when the rains ended. It is estimated that it took
approximately a whole year for the waters to finally subside. The food was limited in that
ark. Otherwise, they were going to
start saying, well, I think that chicken looks appetizing. They were going to turn to the
animals that were there to be consumed. During the remainder of the period,
until finally the dove went out and came back with a leaf to
indicate that the waters had finally subsided. During that
whole period, what stood between Noah and death was the faithfulness
of God. Period! If God was not faithful, That
would have been the end of the human race. That would have been
the end of Noah. That would have been the end
of the breath that was there in the animals, the human beings,
etc. But, thank God, he was faithful. On Noah's side, there was only
one thing to do, and it was this, to trust God. He made His promise,
He will fulfill it. The seventh month, no land. Don't worry, God is faithful. The eighth month, no land. Don't worry, God is faithful. Thirty more days, nothing but
the open sea. My wife, Don't worry, God is
faithful. Eleventh month, nothing but sea. Shame, be quiet. God is faithful. Same thing for you, Ham. Until finally, land is sin. And brethren, Christianity is
exactly the same way. We live our lives in the midst
of skepticism, in the midst of people, some of them, yes, atheistic,
saying there is no God. But others have a form of religion,
but when it comes to the rubber hitting the road, when it comes
to what really matters, they are the first ones to say, don't
take your religion so seriously, you. Come on. Let's bend the
rules a little bit here. Let's bend the middle there.
Let's get on. It is in that context that we
live, and we live out our faith. We live in a context where the
promises of God are about waiting to be fulfilled. And ours is to trust that He
is a faithful God. He never changes. And consequently, we will still
go against the grain of our society. We will remain faithful even
if it costs us. We will still worship Him because
He is a faithful God. And in the end, He will honor
His word. God is in covenant relationship
with us through His Son, Jesus Christ. It's because of that that Jesus
died. It's because of that that He
was raised from the dead. The blood that He shed is the
blood of the same covenant that we are in. And therefore, we need to continue
recognizing that ours is a covenant making God and a covenant keeping
God. As it was with Noah, finally
a day came when that door could be pushed open and the ark was
on dry land. God had proved himself faithful. And as we will go on to notice,
he goes on to renew his covenant with Noah when they come out
of the ark. But that will be for next time.
There are two lessons I think we need to learn from this. The
first is that God is our example. You see, Christianity is about
becoming godly. That's what it is. And becoming
godly means becoming more and more like God. And one of the
ways in which that godliness ought to come through is that
we ought to be a covenant-making and a covenant-keeping people. Deliberately so. We ought to
pride ourselves that that's the way we are. We have made our
promises, we rejoice in making those promises, and we rejoice
in keeping those promises, no matter what happens. That's Christianity. That's Christianity. Now clearly,
we make promises in a number of ways. One of them is to do
with marriage. And again, as I said, in marriage
we are often apart from one another. But surely, when we're apart
from one another, it doesn't mean we can now, like the world,
say, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, free for all. No. Even if our
workmen are having free for all, we have to say to them, me, there
is someone I made a promise to. And deliberately so. And I rejoice
in being faithful to that promise. That's how we are different from
the rest of the world. Similarly, a number of us are
in employment situations, contract situations, where our employers
are not there. They've sent us off elsewhere. And you know how the people of
the world, that's the point at which they really cheat. I often smile when I drive to
petrol stations near here, the Ugas know me, but further away.
And when you put in fuel, you say, I want a cash sale. They
ask you, how much should I write? Have you forgotten how much I
gave you? So you begin to realize that it's the normal thing around
here, that people put in little and then they beef up the figures
and they give a tip to the guys at feeding stations and so forth.
But for those of us who are Christians, that is not even an option. I remain faithful to my covenant
obligations. My contractual obligation, the
fact that my supervisor or my boss is not here does not mean
that the cart is away and consequently the mice can begin to play. I must remain faithful. I want to remain faithful because
I want to be like God. I am Godly, or at least I want
to be. It's the same with respect to
ourselves as church members. We are not always with our elders. We are not always with brothers
and sisters in the Lord. When the services end, we scatter. But if we are truly godly, we
don't need to have a brother in the Lord, or a sister in the
Lord, or the elders near me, in order to be faithful to my
covenant obligations. It's the internal godliness that
still makes us consistent. And it is that which obviously
scandalizes the church when a brother is now, or a sister, is caught
with evidence that they were living a life that was the opposite
of what they had promised within the context of the church. So
you begin to say, now, is this Christianity serious? Because it's supposed to be from
inside out. We're supposed to be like God. Period. And as I often like to apply,
apply to the context of church finances. Because to me, it's
a scandal. And that's the right word. It's
a scandal. If a church introduces an envelope
system with names on it and they're giving doubles. It becomes a scandal. Because
what it simply means is that half of the people are not godly. They're not god-like. Because
surely, if they were God-like, they don't need somebody sort
of saying, hey, yeah, you got paid. Come on, come on. Put the
money here. Put. Huh? What do you mean you haven't
paid school fees? Put. You are in covenant agreement.
You put. You don't need people like that. You should be able
to say, I am in covenant agreement. This is how much I have pledged
to give, and this is the tithe I will give. Period. No spiritual policeman. Because there is godliness. And the godliness is from the
inside out. Therefore our missionaries can
be with Noah in the ark and they don't even have to worry because
they have kindred souls, godly souls that have said to them,
go, we will take care of your material needs so they can relax. Knowing the Church of God comprises
faithful people, we don't need to have ulcers and nightmares.
They will be faithful. After all, they are godly. God is our example. Are we following
His example? Do we pride ourselves in being
godly, and consequently being faithful, and consequently being
different from everybody else? Do we? Another obvious application is
to do with Him being faithful to us. And it's the fact that
we can trust Him. And that's the reason why He
calls all of us to repentance and faith, to trust His promises
in salvation. Are you, as an individual, chained
to one form of sin or the other? And it's dragging you down. It's destroying your life. Well,
He's provided a Savior in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. Call on Him. Trust Him. Believe in Him. He is faithful. He says, whoever calls on the
name of the Lord shall be saved. He shall certainly not be put
to shame. Put Him to the test. Come before
Him with all your sin, with all your burden, and see whether
He will not lift you up He has done so for many others
who have come to Him either with the chains of sin or with the
guilt of sin, knowing that with that guilt they will perish in
hell. They have called on Him and experienced
not only liberation from the power of sin, but also liberation
from the guilt of sin. So you don't need to be here
today and still go home in sin when there is such a God, a God
who deliberately says to you, trust me, trust me. Trust my faithfulness. It's part
of my character. Others can be unfaithful. I will
never be unfaithful. Trust my promises. Today, if
you call on His name, He will truly save you. And consequently,
you can join the band of thousands upon thousands and tens of thousands
upon tens of thousands who are marching towards heaven, knowing
very well the God who causes his son to rise and set literally
every day and as we shall come to learn next week the God who
has caused his rainbow to cover the earth is one who will keep
his promise and on the judgment day I will not need to be ashamed
he will bring me into his heaven because I have trusted in his
son Jesus Christ Will you trust Him today? Will
you trust Him today? Or will you spit upon such a
faithful God who delivered Noah after a solid year of waiting,
locked up in an ark? Will you not trust Him too? to
bring your soul to heaven, to rescue you from the sinful and
immoral world. Amen.
The Covenant Making God
Series Faithfulness
| Sermon ID | 47131327232 |
| Duration | 49:08 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Genesis 6:18 |
| Language | English |
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